Cloud9 soar past G2 on way to semis
The final best of three of the day was between the one North American representative Cloud9 and the top French team G2. The pistol round of Cloud9's pick of Mirage was an incredibly fast win for G2. Timothy "autimatic" Ta picked up three huge deagle kills to allow his team to take the second round force buy. After a technical pause, G2's own force buy got them close to another round, but Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham cleaned up to secure their economy.
Once G2 got onto a full buy, Cloud9 got shut down at A site with a good triple by Nathan "NBK-" Schmitt, but the American side responded with a fast play to reset the Frenchmen. Just about everyone from Cloud9 were pitching in, as Will "RUSH" Wierzba turned up in a 2v2 to extend their lead to four rounds. Tarik "tarik" Celik also put in a huge quadruple in his team's growing dominance.
With some A ramp aggression, Richard "shox" Papillon succeed in getting four kills to give G2 a chance back in. Dan "apEX" Madesclaire capitalized on this chance, and from catwalk shut down the Cloud9 play in mid. Jake "Stewie2K" Yip and RUSH played a 2v5 superbly in round 14, but due to the round time, G2 picked up a sixth. The French side finished the comeback in the first half with a good defense by shox for a 7-8 score.
Cloud9 again started off the half well, with RUSH picking up an ace in the second round. They continued to decimate the G2 side in each round until round 21 when Kenny "kennyS" Schrub won a 1 on 1 against Skadoodle. They couldn't convert it however, and Cloud9 won out the rest of the map. With RUSH closing it out, Mirage went to the Americans 16-8.
The third pistol round of the series went to Cloud9, and after an impactful 1 on 2 victory by RUSH they acquired the 3-0 start. On their first gun round, G2 did a strong B take and put themselves on the board. After taking an eco loss, Stewie2K got three huge entries in round seven. shox got three kills himself in the 1v5 attempt, but was unable to complete the dream. The following round seemed it would go to the G2 side, but a magical retake and smoke defuse by autimatic and RUSH put Cloud9 in control.
G2 was unable to do anything it seemed as they could only manage a single round in the rest of the half. Stewie2K and autimatic led their squad to a huge 12-3 lead, despite the efforts of shox and Alexandre "bodyy" Pianaro.
shox's men secured a chance in the map after winning the first three rounds of the second half. Once it came to the gun rounds however, the American team kept up their dominance. With tarik and Stewie at the helm, C9 quickly secured map and match point. bodyy was intent on not losing just yet, as a big B defense from the Major playoffs rookie kept his team alive in the tournament. It was in vain however, as Cloud9 took Overpass 16-7 and the series 2-0.
G2Cloud9| G2 |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Richard 'shox' Papillon |
37 - 38 | -1 | 76.0 | 68.1% | 1.04 |
| Alexandre 'bodyy' Pianaro |
27 - 34 | -7 | 66.3 | 74.5% | 0.94 |
| Kenny 'kennyS' Schrub |
26 - 34 | -8 | 62.3 | 57.4% | 0.81 |
| Dan 'apEX' Madesclaire |
26 - 39 | -13 | 66.3 | 63.8% | 0.76 |
| Nathan 'NBK-' Schmitt |
24 - 36 | -12 | 59.3 | 57.4% | 0.67 |
| Cloud9 |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 William 'RUSH' Wierzba |
40 - 23 | +17 | 93.4 | 83.0% | 1.48 |
| Tarik 'tarik' Celik |
38 - 30 | +8 | 88.3 | 78.7% | 1.29 |
| Jake 'Stewie2K' Yip |
38 - 33 | +5 | 89.2 | 74.5% | 1.28 |
| Tyler 'Skadoodle' Latham |
31 - 24 | +7 | 66.1 | 74.5% | 1.17 |
| Timothy 'autimatic' Ta |
34 - 30 | +4 | 67.4 | 74.5% | 1.11 |
Cloud9 now move on to the semifinals where they will face either SK or Fnatic who will play tomorrow morning. G2's run ends now in the quarterfinals in a bitter manner despite the streak of group stage exits ending.
